1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, system, and method for extracting the structure of song lyrics based on a repeated pattern of song lyrics, and more particularly, to an apparatus, system, and method for extracting the structure of song lyrics based on a repeated pattern of song lyrics, which can arrange lyric information in a tree structure by extracting repeated character string and paragraph through analysis of the song lyrics.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, portable audio file players that can reproduce digitally encoded audio files have been commonly used. That is, compact hand-held devices that can process digitally encoded audio files stored in semiconductor memories have become popular.
Further, as the demands for portable audio file players offering higher data storage capacities have increased, next-generation players containing compact, high capacity hard drives have been developed and are rapidly gaining popularity.
In an audio file player, data in a digital audio file is loaded into a data storage device by first downloading the data from an audio CD, Internet, or another digital audio device to a PC. Then, the data is usually compressed according to a selected encoding format and loaded into the data storage device for the audio file player.
The audio file is decompressed/decoded by the audio file player during playback according to the selected encoding format. Various encoding formats for compressing and decompressing audio files are available. Examples of encoding formats include, but are not limited to, MP3 and MP3 Pro.
For MP3 encoded audio files, a special set of frames called an ID3 tag are prefixed or appended to a data file. ID3 tags contain descriptive text and other data related to the audio file. For example, an ID3 tag may include title, artist, album, year, genre, and comments. ID3 tag information is useful for searching, sorting, and selecting a specific audio file based on the information contained in the ID3 tag. Because ID3 tag information is often stored as textual characters, the information can be displayed on the display screen of the audio file player.
With the advancement of technology, various independent devices are being integrated into single systems and the size of such devices is decreasing. In the wake of this trend, an audio file player is being miniaturized and the size of a display window is decreasing. Thus, selecting a song title by manipulating small densely arranged buttons on the display window may cause considerable inconvenience to users.
Further, due to the increasing numbers of audio files being stored in audio file players, it is taking longer for users to retrieve desired audio files.
One approach to efficiently search for a desired audio file is to use speech recognition for beginning index characters and a complete list of artist names and song titles. Another method is to use a music melody such as humming. Another method includes creating a fingerprint representing the characteristics of an audio file and providing an audio file having similar characteristics (singer/album/melody) to those of a song being currently played.
The above-described conventional approaches to providing audio files allow users to perform searches depending on the classification and characteristics of audio files owned by them. The conventional approaches also require users to remember complete information about the desired file. Another drawback is that it requires a lot of time for a user to recognize an audio file being played because the audio file has to be played from the beginning portion (i.e., prelude portion) of the file for confirmation.
The Japanese Laid-open Patent Application 2002-074911 proposes an audio player that can retrieve a specific item in ID3 tag data containing features of each song such as prelude, lyrics and repeated section, which were previously recorded while audio data is being written to a recording medium such as CD in the form of MP3, and create a list of information to be retrieved containing the features. However, the audio player does not provide a technique for creating a tree structure using information from an audio file and providing a specific service section using information about the tree structure upon a user's request for a service.